Editorial

At a time when we are witnessing the rise of overtly racist political parties and movements in the US and Western Europe, with dangerously violent repercussions for people of colour and other minorities, engaging in a philosophical discussion of race and racism may seem, at best, a luxury, and at worst a dangerous distraction.

Yet Marx’s Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach notwithstanding, the editors and contributors to this volume would agree that it is important to understand what needs changing and why, and that philosophy can play a valuable role in this task. As Babbitt and Campbell noted as long ago as 1999, in the Introduction to the edited collection, Racism and Philosophy,

Racism is not just a topic for ethics and political philosophy. The existence of systemic racism – its consequences for the structures of the societies in which philosophy is done, as well as for how philosophy has been done and by whom – has deep implications for epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophical methodology. (Babbitt and Campbell 1999, 1)

Exploring some of these consequences and meanings, and the way in which rigorous philosophical work can contribute to our understanding of ‘race’ and ‘racism’, is the focus of the Critical Philosophy of Race, now a well established academic field, albeit more so in the United States than in Europe. Yet at the same time, while, as the British Education Research Association puts it, ‘“Race” and ethnicity continue to be major factors influencing children’s and adults’ experiences of education at all levels and in a variety of respects’ (https://www.bera.ac.uk/group/race-ethnicity-and-education), and while philosophers of education work across all the sub-disciplines of philosophy, philosophical work on race remains very marginal within philosophy of education, especially in the UK.

This point is reflected in the findings of the recent Runnymede Report commissioned by the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain.¹ One recommendation arising from this report is that if we want to make the spaces in which we do and teach philosophy more inclusive and diverse, we need to make room for a variety of voices drawing on different philosophical and inter-disciplinary work; exploring the myriad ways in which issues of race raise questions for us as philosophers and educators.

In the UK there is a long tradition of activist scholarship concerning the existence and effect of racism in the education system. Scholars such as C.L.R. James, Claudia Jones, Ambalavar Sivanandan, Stuart Hall, Paul Gilroy, Barry Troyna, Heida Safia Mirza, Bernard Coard and Gus John have addressed and explored many of the themes found in this special issue –how underlying racialised relationships of domination in society have shaped and influenced educational policy and practice and the extent to which they continue to do. The black British intellectual tradition has often operated outside of ‘the ivory tower’ both out of commitment to community struggles and, at times, out of necessity. Indeed Paul Warmington notes ‘it might be argued that black British intellectual life and academia have intersected only fitfully’ (Warmington 2014, 5). This volume is an attempt to build on and extend these intellectual conversations within the community of philosophy of education and philosophy more broadly, which, as Michael Peters put it in his recent Editorial for a special issue of Educational Philosophy and Theory, ‘of all disciplines, [] has seemed most resistant to taking race seriously’ (Peters 2015).

Likewise, while sounding a powerful warning of the very real dangers of contemporary racist currents in our educational institutions and in society more broadly, the contributors to this issue also recognise and celebrate the significant contributions and pedagogical interventions achieved by social movements such as Black Lives Matter, ‘Why is My Curriculum White?’, and ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ – whose voices form part of the critical discussion so necessary if we are to challenge the increasing resurgence of racist and xenophobic narratives about our past, our present, and our future.

In drawing together contributors from different cultural and disciplinary contexts, working within different intellectual traditions, we hope to show how philosophical conversations on race and racism, in dialogue with sociological research and historical enquiry, can inform and contribute to the endeavour to fight the structural racism that permeates the societies in which so many of us live, through an understanding of how it manifests itself in our pedagogical practices, curriculum, educational policy and institutions. The contributions range across the whole spectrum of educational practice. Winston Thompson, Kristie Dotson and Shirley Anne Tate and Damien Page all situate their discussions within the context of further or higher education, whether focused on issues of curriculum, institutional policy or pedagogy, and drawing on philosophical work on diversity, decolonisation, memory and knowledge. Sophie Rudolph, Jessica Gerrard and Arathi Sriprakash focus on the conceptualisation of knowledge and power that underlies so many debates about what and how to teach; Melissa Fitzpatrick and Amy Reed-Sandoval, Darren Chetty, Jack Bicker and Michalinos Zembylas all discuss particular aspects of classroom pedagogy, drawing on broader work to do with issues of identity, inclusion, dialogue, empowerment and affect.

The seminal work of Charles Mills informs many of these discussions. Zara Bain’s opening article offers, for readers perhaps less familiar with this work, a systematic account of some of Mills’ central ideas, and, for the first time, an explicit analysis of their relevance and implications for the British context. As Mills’ own work has demonstrated, and as reflected in the discussions by Sriprakash et al., Dotson, Bain and Chetty, understanding the history of our educational, philosophical and social ideas and practices is a crucial element in developing a critical perspective on current debates. Indeed, reflecting on the electoral victory of Donald Trump and the Brexit campaign, Stuart Jeffries, in a recent interview about the relevance of the work of the Frankfurt School theorists for our contemporary age, notes the ease with which populist leaders speak and lie to voters, pointing out that ‘this is a way of controlling people, especially people who don’t have a sense of history’ (Illing 2017).

Or, as James Baldwin put it,

For history, as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do. It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities and our aspirations. And it is with great pain and terror that one begins to realize this. In great pain and terror, one begins to assess the history which has placed one where one is, and formed one’s point of view. In great pain and terror, because, thereafter, one enters into battle with that historical creation, oneself, and attempts to recreate oneself according to a principle more humane and more liberating; one begins the attempt to achieve a level of personal maturity and freedom which robs history of its tyrannical power, and also changes history. (Baldwin 1966, 173)

This is surely an important task for education; and, we would suggest, an important task for philosophers and theorists of education.

Judith Suissa
UCL Institute of Education
[email protected]http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4156-9477
Darren Chetty
UCL Institute of Education

Notes

1. http://www.philosophy-of-education.org/files/about/Runnymede%20PESGB%20Final%20Report.pdf